


What Have They Lost?

by Ray_Writes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DCU, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Established Barry Allen/Iris West, Eventual Lauriver - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pulls From Various DC Continuities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2020-07-20 09:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19989700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: "I can definitely tell you that there’s a way we’re going to bring [Laurel] back and she’s going to be alive and well. And Flashpoint might have a little bit to do with that." -Wendy MericleAKA: The AU where that wasn't a blatant lie, and Flashpoint has bigger repercussions for Barry's friends and allies than he first realized.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, probably not wise to start yet another WIP without finishing the one I have going but...I got really excited about this idea and wanted to see what people thought.  
> If this is continued (which I hope to do so), things may get a little confusing as certain characters will be going by different (more comic book accurate) names, but I'll do my best to make that clear when introducing them. There are characters referenced in this chapter who will have a bigger role going forward, and when that happens I will add their character tags. Similarly, if some characters haven't been mentioned at all yet, that doesn't mean they won't be in the story. Their character tags will be added later, too.  
> Much thanks to colorofmymind for beta-ing this chapter and helping me restructure some things. It's a much better beginning as a result. Title is pulled directly from a line in DC Rebirth by Geoff Johns while song titles and lyrics were pulled from both the Black Canary solo book and Green Arrow Rebirth, and I make no claim of owning any of them. I hope you all enjoy and let me know your initial impressions!

Barry felt that, all things considered, life was treating him fairly well lately.

Of course, he’d had to fix the mistake he’d made going back in time to save his mother, and even now there were consequences from that. The team hadn’t been happy to learn that truth, and he worried his and Cisco’s friendship would never again be quite what it was. There were things that had resulted from his meddling that he would always feel guilt over.

But not this. Not him and Iris. Despite an awkward first attempt at a date and the second getting interrupted as well, they were falling into a better pattern now as a couple.

She found him in his lab one late morning while Julian was out at a crime scene, so they had the space to themselves for a bit. Iris wrapped her arms around his middle from behind and placed her chin on his shoulder, though he doubted it was to see the spectrometer he was working with.

“Any plans for tonight?”

Barry shook his head. “Nothing specific. You know, just,” he waved a hand to indicate general Flash stuff, which Iris understood with no trouble.

“Think you could take a break for one night?”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because I got concert tickets and I want you to go with me.”

A concert? That wasn’t usually his scene. “How’d you get them?”

“Daria in Arts and Entertainment gets sent them sometimes and she can’t make tonight work, so she offered them to me.”

Daria in Arts and Entertainment? That probably meant this was some kind of pop thing, didn’t it? Barry’s face scrunched up.

“I don’t know, Iris…”

“Bear, come  _ on.” _ She squeezed him tight for a moment before letting go and taking a couple steps back. “It’s Birds of Prey!”

“Am I supposed to know them?”

“They’ve only been my favorite band since college, so I would hope so,” she remarked, and Barry turned around with a frown. He could have sworn Iris always said she liked the pop star Cassidy best. “They do some slow stuff, too. I know how you like your jazz,” Iris added with an indulgent roll of the eyes. “So are you in or out?”

He knew Iris still wanted to do some normal couple stuff as well as more extravagant dates. And if she was happy, Barry was sure he could put up with some music that might not be his taste.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m in. It’ll be fun.”

“Great.” Iris leaned in and pecked him on the lips. “Gotta head back to work, but I will see you later for our date. I’ll text you the details.”

“Okay.” Barry watched her go, his smile falling off his face as she disappeared down the stairs. If this was Iris’ favorite band, he was going to have to do some research.

He went to his computer and searched the name Birds of Prey, only finding articles about a band and their lead singer, a woman only known as Dinah.

“Triumphant return to Central City after particle accelerator accident,” he read aloud to himself from the bit of preview text from one article. What did that mean? And why did the name Dinah sound oddly familiar to him?

A knock on his lab door called his attention, and he was busy the rest of the afternoon with casework, even with Julian’s added assistance. Rather than resume his internet search after his shift ended, Barry decided to pursue a different avenue of inquiry.

Cisco was present when he rushed into STAR Labs. His friend barely looked up from the computer monitor he’d been studying.

“Cisco, hey, what do you know about Birds of Prey?”

That question caught the engineer’s attention. “Uh, you mean one of the greatest musical groups of our time?”

“Yeah. Sure.” How did everybody already know this band besides him?

“They’re stopping here on their comeback tour. I think it’s tonight, isn’t it? I missed the online bid for tickets.”

“Iris got two from her coworker, so we’re going tonight,” Barry revealed.

Cisco groaned. “Lucky. I only saw Dinah live once, back when she was doing open mic nights around colleges, you know?” Cisco’s gaze got a faraway look. “I had a poster of her on my wall all through grad school. I’d give anything for a picture with her.”

“Well, I can’t promise that, but I can try and get you a picture of just her.” Barry checked his phone. “I’ve got to meet Iris at the house.”

“Yeah, have a good night.”

“You, too.” It hadn’t been perfect, but Cisco had at least been willing to open up to him about some topic, even if it was one that made little sense to Barry.

He arrived home and changed quickly into clothes better suited for a concert. Iris already had the keys to the car, so she drove them over rather than him running them. They parked on the street near the venue and joined a fast-growing line to get in.

“So, everybody keeps calling this the comeback tour,” Barry began. “What’re they coming back from?”

“You really didn’t hear?” When he shook his head, Iris continued, “They were performing on stage the night of the particle accelerator explosion.”

“And there was an accident,” he said, repeating what he had read before.

“Yeah, the sound equipment and everything, you know? I mean, the band manager got them all off the stage before anyone got too hurt, but there were all kinds of rumors about Dinah’s voice being damaged or the trauma being too much to let her go back on stage.”

“Wow,” was all Barry could come up with. 

“Yeah. But, she got back in the game. This is their last stop on the tour, at least for now. People are wondering if they might go international next.”

They had passed through the doors and now were too busy looking for their seats to talk. They weren’t right in the front row, but Arts and Entertainment writers were clearly given a good spot, probably in hopes the review would be better.

The lights dimmed, and a voice came over the systems.  _ “Central City, here tonight is the band that needs no introduction. This is...Birds of Prey!” _

The obligatory fog machine obscured things as the musicians all got into place. He counted two redheads and a woman with hair so dark it almost bordered on black. Nothing about them seemed to stand out in his memory.

But he didn’t need the large screens on either side to tell who the woman was that strode confidently downstage to the mic in the center. Even if it should have been impossible.

_ “Laurel?” _

The crowd was too loud around them, and Iris was busy with cheering and didn’t hear him or see his distress.

How could it be possible? He still remembered standing in front of Laurel’s grave, watching as Oliver tried to hold back the anguish that had been in the wet sheen of his eyes and the deep lines of his face. He didn’t think he could ever forget that look. It hadn’t just been Barry’s team who’d loved her.

And yet she was standing above him on a stage, so alive.

“Hello, Central City! It is good to be back.” Laurel paused to let the cheers subside. “I wanted to make sure we stopped here on tour. Had a bit of a fight for it. You can ask Ted.”

Iris leaned over to tell him, “Ted’s the band manager. He’s practically a father to her.”

“He is?” Who was Ted? Where was Captain Lance?

Iris nodded but gave him a second look. “You okay?”

He felt incredibly faint, actually, but there was no time to explain anything to Iris. There were people all around them and Laurel was speaking again.

“But Ted agreed, because we don’t walk away from things. Right, Central City?”

Laurel paused again for cheers. Someone out in the crowd shouted a, “We love you!”

“I love you, too!” She replied with a beautiful smile. “No matter how many times we get knocked down, we get back up. So let’s get up and get things started!”

She motioned back to the band, and the dark brunette hit her drumsticks together four times before the rest of the music started up. People were already on their feet, and Barry stood as well to see better. Now that he was over the shock he started taking more of her appearance in. There was still her blonde hair cascading down her back, but that was about where the similarities ended in how this Laurel styled herself. She had on a blue tank top, ripped up jean shorts, and fishnet leggings on under those. Fishnets!

Was it Siren? Was this all just some trick? And yet even as he thought that it made little sense. Iris’ favorite band since college, Cisco’s poster in grad school...somehow, Laurel Lance had been a member of this band for years. 

But she’d been a hero. They all knew that. Or they had.

The song they were performing now seemed to be called  _ Fish Out of Water, _ judging by the chorus. Barry could relate to that feeling. Then it hit him that Laurel actually had a really good voice. He’d never known that about her, whether it had even been true before...all this.

Because it was dawning on him what this was. Just like the changes that had occurred to his friends’ loved ones because of his meddling, the only explanation for Laurel not only being alive but drastically different than he remembered was the timeline being altered. But how could he have missed this?

If this much was different, what else had changed in Star City? He’d spoken to Felicity briefly since returning to this timeline and realized John now had twins instead of a daughter, but what about Oliver? Were he and the others okay?

“I’m gonna slow things down a bit,” Laurel was saying. “Even if I know you guys like things fast around here.”

Iris nudged him in the side with a big grin. It faded as he looked at her, though. “Seriously, Bear, you okay?”

“It can wait.” Now wasn’t the time or place to get into it. He wasn’t even sure how to explain to Iris that a woman she had never met but admired was now still a woman she had never met but admired just in a different way.

_ “If ya broke the wings of a blackbird, baby...it’s a joke to think she’ll look backward, baby,” _ Laurel sang. She looked...sad, somehow. Not in an obvious way. The confidence was still there, but it was like something was missing. And Barry thought he knew what it was.

His mind raced as the band closed out with another louder number to get people cheering right at the end.

“How do you feel about pretending to be from Arts and Entertainment?” He asked at more of a shout in Iris’ ear to be heard.

She raised both eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Barry ran instead, back to her office at Central City Picture News to grab a camera and a couple of press passes. When he reappeared at her side, she blinked in surprise.

“Barry—”

“It’s kind of important that we talk to her. I’ll explain on the way home.”

Iris looked unsure, but she nodded, trusting him. Barry felt a boost of confidence at that; the rest of his teammates weren’t that willing to trust in his ability these days.

They made their way backstage with the passes and waited as Laurel and the others exited the stage. Barry felt a little stunned to watch her approach this close despite seeing her up on the stage. She was real and alive and a part of him wanted to rush forward and hug her — but that would probably get them kicked out.

There were a few lucky fans with special passes there, too, and he watched as the woman and sometimes-teammate he’d known signed autographs and took selfies with them. He snapped a couple of pictures with the camera he’d borrowed for appearance’s sake.

“Great show tonight, Dinah,” Iris called out to get her attention. She held out her hand when the other woman approached. “I’m Iris West with Central City Picture News. Huge fan, really.”

“Thanks for coming out,” said Laurel, her eyes only briefly passing over Barry, and it was so strange not seeing even a hint of recognition there. Had they never met in this timeline? What did this mean about whether she knew the others?

“So what’s next for the band?” He asked. “International, somewhere else in the states? Star City, maybe? It’s our, uh, sister city,” Barry added when both Laurel and Iris gave him odd looks.

“Funny you should say that. We’ll be taking some time off in Star, yeah. Ted and me, anyway. The other girls are stopping home in Gotham, but Ted’s got a place there.” She nodded back towards an older man with flecks of gray in his hair and a few lines in a deeply tanned face.

“Great,” said Barry.

“Your new song,  _ Blackbird. _ It’s really good, and the lyrics, uh, what’s the story behind that?” Iris asked. Barry knew he’d put her on the spot and that this style of interview wasn’t exactly her specialty. He thought she was doing a great job, though.

Laurel shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of false starts in life. A lot of things I’ve had to walk away from. You learn to live with it.” She glanced over at Ted again who made some kind of motion. “Listen, there’s a girl scheduled to meet me in the green room, so if we could wrap this up?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I’ll message your people if I think of anything else to ask,” Iris said quickly. “Thanks so much for your time.”

“Yeah, thanks Lau— uh, Dinah,” Barry remembered at the last second. Her eyes jumped to his with a sharp look.

“Yeah. You too.” Laurel said quietly. She turned and walked away, glancing back at them over her shoulder once.

“So what was that actually about?” Iris asked in his ear. Barry gave a start and looked away from the hallway Laurel had disappeared down. They went through a side exit and started the walk back to the car.

“I know her. Or knew her. Um, before I changed the timeline.”

Iris’ eyes widened. “Really? How?”

“She wasn’t a singer. She was the Black Canary. A hero, part of Oliver’s team. She died last spring—” Iris stopped in her tracks, expression one of alarm. Barry reached for her hand to keep her moving down the sidewalk. “—or she did in that timeline. I don’t know how this happened.”

Iris was quiet for a few moments, processing the information. “Well, at least she’s here in this timeline?”

“Yeah, but,” Barry began. He shrugged. “It’s so different. She doesn’t even go by the same name!”

He remembered seeing  _ Dinah _ on the gravestone, only then realizing they’d all been calling her by her middle name the whole time. What made a person decide to change names? How far back did this divergence from the timeline go?

Iris was frowning, discomfort showing on her features. She had defended his actions in changing things to the rest of the team, but was this a step too far? What did she think of him now? “Well, Bear, I think you’re just going to have to leave this be,” she said eventually. “It’s too late to change things.”

“I know. I just — I need to check on the others in Star, okay? Just so I know what’s been going on if we ever have to team up sometime.”

“Okay.” Iris let him go with a kiss, and then Barry was off running again, first to get his suit and then to Star City.

What was Team Arrow like without a Black Canary? What was Oliver like? He didn’t know too much about the other man’s relationship with Laurel, but they’d obviously been close judging by how affected he’d been at the funeral. What would Barry be like without one of his teammates? He couldn’t even imagine it.

He entered the cave and stopped, calling out to make sure the space wasn’t as empty as it appeared. “Hey, Ollie, you in? Really need to talk to — woah!”

Barry didn’t quite dodge out of the way of two arrows connected by a wire that shot out and pinned him to the wall behind him.

A young man, teenager really, with blonde hair and dark skin emerged from behind a support beam. He carried a bow and quiver of arrows and was grinning as he approached. “Gotta watch your surroundings better, Flash.”

“Connor,” said a familiar voice, the tone only slightly warning.

“I’m only messing, dad,” said the teenager to Oliver as the older man approached. Barry felt his mouth drop open. Since when did Oliver have a second son?

Oliver himself seemed different, somehow, in ways that were hard to define. The stubble he usually had could more accurately be called a goatee, and there were lines in his face that Barry could have sworn hadn’t been there. But he didn’t look as abjectly miserable as the last time Barry had seen him.

“What’s going on, Barry?”

He decided to just cut to the chase. “What do you know about Dinah Laurel Lance?”

Oliver’s face scrunched up. He frowned, though it was more in confusion than anything else. Then the worst possible answer left his lips.

“Who?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I was really surprised and happy with the response everybody gave on this idea. So I wanted to get this chapter out to you all before I go back to class this semester. Many thanks again to colorofmymind for beta-ing.
> 
> Additionally, for anyone who's on discord, I have created a Lauriver server for fans to talk and promote each other's content. Here's the link: https://discord.gg/gp9ANVr  
> I would love to see any and all of you there!
> 
> At any rate, here's the next chapter, and I hope you enjoy!

Oliver’s life was rarely dull ever since he boarded the  _ Queen’s Gambit _ back in ‘07 with both of his parents and lost them to the sea, but the last few years particularly had had their ups and downs.

One of those big ups was Connor. Even if the kid could be a handful sometimes. But that was better than when he’d first got here.

Oliver stepped forward and ripped the arrowheads from the wall that were keeping Barry held back and handed the line off to Connor. “Not bad placement.”

Connor beamed up at him. “Thanks, dad.”

He reached out and ruffled his son’s hair, looking back to Barry with a grin of his own. “He’s getting almost as good as me.”

“Yeah, that’s- that’s good,” Barry said, staring at Connor with the weirdest look on his face.

Connor seemed to notice it, too, for he shrunk back a little. “I think I’ll go meditate for a bit. Let you two talk about whatever.”

Oliver nodded, seeing his son off before rounding back on Barry. “Want to explain anything?”

“It’s, um, complicated. Look, Oliver, can you just answer a couple questions without asking me why I don’t know the answers already?”

He raised an eyebrow, but said, “Alright, shoot.”

“Connor is your son.”

“Not a question, Barry.”

“I know, but he’s...he’s gotta be like fifteen, doesn’t he?”

Oliver looked down, grimacing. “He’s fourteen.” He didn’t need to look up to know there was a follow up question on Barry’s lips. “We all know I screwed around, okay? Can we leave it at that?”

He’d been sixteen and stupid, sneaking into a college party with his best friend, Tommy Merlyn. Tommy had played wingman for him with a college girl named Sandra, and they’d fallen into bed with more alcohol in them than was wise. He’d forgotten the condom, or ripped it in his clumsiness, or something. He couldn’t remember anymore. He’d put the night out of his mind for almost twelve years.

Sandra hadn’t, of course. She’d gotten pregnant with an underage boy’s baby. And so she’d disappeared, she’d had to. Back to her father’s ranch in Idaho. And only when Connor was old enough to know the truth about his father had he come looking for him, turning Oliver’s whole world upside-down.

Maybe Barry hadn’t gotten all the dirty details when he’d first met Connor, but he’d got the gist. So what was the deal?

“And you don’t have any other sons?” Barry asked next.

“Not that I know of. Barry, are you going to tell me what the point of this is? What does this have to do with — who’d you ask me about?”

“Laur- Dinah,” Barry corrected himself. “She goes by Dinah, and maybe you’ve heard some of her music, but uh—”

“Oh,” said Oliver. “You mean the singer? With the- what’s that band called — Bats or Birds or something?”

“Yeah,” said Barry, though he didn’t look all that happy they’d gotten on the same page. “Do you know her?”

“I know of her. Wouldn’t mind getting to know her,” he mused aloud. She was something else from the occasional photo or poster he’d seen. Those legs in those fishnets...

Barry coughed.

Oliver blinked and came back to himself. “Well, what about her, Barry?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” the speedster hedged. “Felicity didn’t happen to talk to you after I saw her a couple weeks ago, did she?”

Oliver frowned. “Barry, you know she doesn’t talk to me unless she has to anymore, right?”

Barry’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what? You’re not saying the breakup went worse?”

He gave a small snort. “Yeah, breakup. It was one date, Barry.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Because Connor came to me right after, and I was busy trying to verify if what he was telling me was the truth, remember? I asked you to run a paternity test?”

Barry’s head hung back. “And Felicity found out after and got upset and broke up with you?”

“Yes, except I did the breaking up. I’d just found out I had a kid, I wasn’t at all in a good place to be starting a relationship.” Truthfully, he was kind of glad things had worked out that way. He liked Felicity well enough, but at times they just couldn’t relate. He’d thought about dating her mostly because she was one of the few who knew his secret; it would’ve been practical. But love wasn’t practical. He’d been kidding himself.

Oliver shook his head. “Is there a reason you’ve developed selective amnesia?”

“There is. It’s just, I’m not sure how much I should say.”

“Well, if it’s about Connor, then I need to know. I’m his father, Barry.”

He stared the younger man down, who shifted uneasily.

“What do you know about time travel?”

“That you can do it? Or that speedsters can, I guess.”

“Okay.” Barry took a deep breath. “The thing is, I sort of time traveled this last spring and as a result some things changed.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Well, like, um, some things about your life and the people you know. It’s not all bad. I mean, Laurel’s still — Dinah, I mean. Dinah’s still...and Digg’s okay! I didn’t see anything about Thea, either.”

Oliver blinked. “Who’s Thea?”

Barry snapped out of his babbling, a lingering smile on his face. “Oliver, come on. Thea. Thea Queen? Your sister?”

“Barry, that’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be — Oh God. Does she not...exist? I — no, that can’t be right. I- I gotta go.”

And with one last horrified look, Barry was gone in a rush of wind. Oliver sat down hard, putting his head in his hands. What had just happened?

Barry had messed with time, and now something about Oliver’s life had him spooked. But it was his life. It didn’t feel strange or wrong to him. Was he just thinking that because that was how things had always been.

And what did a literal rockstar have to do with it? There was no way he could be connected to someone like her. His whole team never stopped reminding him of what a dork he was.

Oliver shook his head and left the base for the upstairs loft he shared with Connor. Owning the whole building did come with some perks.

Connor looked up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the couch, taking deep, even breaths. Oliver raised a hand. “Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“It’s okay. I just got here five minutes before you did.”

Oliver paused, then shook his head. He should have figured his son would’ve listened in. “Alright. What do you think? Uncle Barry’s gone round the bend?”

Connor made a face. “Doesn’t seem like he wants to be my uncle.”

Oliver’s smile dropped. “Connor, no. It’s not you, it’s speedsters. You know how big picture they get, zipping up and down through time. Makes me glad not to be one.” He settled down on the couch beside Connor. “Give Barry some time to readjust, and I’m sure it’ll be fine. And if not, I’ll be talking to Iris.”

If anyone had a problem with his son, he’d go to whoever he had to to set it right. Oliver couldn’t even fathom a world without his kid now, imperfect as their relationship had started out. He wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Connor smirked briefly, though it fell as he asked, “Dad, do you really have a sister?”

“I…”

He wanted to say no. Before today, he would have said so without thinking. But Barry’s confusion about the past had him thinking of his own past, of those dark, bygone years.

_ His mother wasting away in the liferaft, muttering feverishly into his shoulder as she clung to him. “Oh, my babies. My babies…” _

_ “I’m right here, mom.” _

_ “My beautiful boy. Keep her safe. Robert, Robert mustn’t know…” _

_ “Know what, mom? Mom?” _

_ She hadn’t responded, slipping into unconsciousness from which she never awoke. _

He wrapped an arm around Connor’s shoulders to ward off the dark mood that usually came along with such recollections. “Honestly, I don’t know. There was a lot that my parents chose not to tell me. Not until the end.”

And if he did have a sister? All these years, he had failed his mother’s last request, to keep her safe. If she was even real.

He squeezed Connor tight for a moment before standing. “I’m going to be busy looking through the old family papers for a couple days, okay?”

“You want any help?”

“Nah, it’ll be boring. You keep up with your target practice.” He reached out and ruffled his son’s hair. “Since you’re determined to join me out on the field.”

“Okay, okay.” Connor brought up his hands to fend off the attack, so Oliver left for the kitchen to get started on making a late dinner.

He put on a pot of coffee for good measure. He was going to be pulling a lot of late nights.

—-

Mia wiped off the bartop with a rag as a young couple left their seats to head out into the evening air. There were a couple bucks left under an empty glass, and she quickly stuffed them into her bra. Better to keep track of tips than leave them lying around.

There was chatter from the booths and music blaring overhead. Larry was already taking up his end of the bar. Just another evening.

She felt a sort of charge to the air for a moment, and the ends of her hair whipped around her face. Quickly as it had happened, it stopped. Mia blinked and shook her head.

The front door opened and a man staggered through, making straight for her at the bar. He’d be cute if he didn’t look half-crazed.

“Okay. You’re still here. That’s- that’s good. Ollie’s not gonna kill me now.”

Mia arched a single eyebrow. “Can I help you?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ve just been looking the last two days. Between work and everything else, had to do it in stages,” he explained. “Actually, can I get a water?”

“Sure.”

Mia got it for him with growing bemusement, especially when he gulped it down and asked for another.

“You gonna actually buy anything?”

“Uh, no. Actually, I don’t drink. But, uh, I could tip you?” He added when she gave him a look.

“Yes, you could.”

He got out his wallet. “So, just to be sure, we’ve never met before, right? You have no idea who I am?”

“No. Should I?” Oh God, it’d be just her luck that this guy was from her druggie days.

He shrugged. “Depends how you look at it. I’m Barry.”

“Mia.”

His face scrunched up. “Mia?”

“Yeah, what about it?” She dropped a hand to her hip and snatached up the dollar he’d just laid on the counter.

“Nothing. But I guess it explains earlier.”

She wanted to ask him about that. She wanted to ask him about a lot of things, actually.

“Hey, can I get a scotch or what?” Larry called out, and Mia groaned in the back of her throat.

“Yeah, Larry.”

She pulled down another glass and poured out the drink. She was tempted to water it down a bit, but even sloshed he would probably notice. Mia scooped up the dollar tip he slapped down as she set the drink in front of Larry, then walked back down to the other end of the bar where her new friend sat.

“Did you just call that guy Larry?”

Mia shrugged. “Yeah, what about it?”

“But he’s…” Barry shook his head. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Just that he’s a regular. Why, what’s it to you? Wanna buy him a drink?”

“Um, no. Maybe. He’s here a lot then? Doesn’t he have family or something?”

Mia snorted. “That’s cute that you think people just ‘have family’ lying around waiting to take care of them.”

“Well. Don’t you?”

Mia froze for a moment, then turned to the rack of washed glasses while ripping a clean rag out of the bag they kept under the counters.

“Mia, what do you know about Oliver Queen?”

She snorted. “What, the trust fund brat they fished out of the ocean a few years ago? Heard he’s got a kid, doesn’t he?”

“He does, yeah. What about his parents?”

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” This guy was making less sense than the drunks.

“They are, but what else about them?” He had something pulled up on his phone, a news article or wiki page by the looks of it. “What about Moira Dearden Queen?”

“Her name’s Dearden?”

“Her maiden name, yeah.”

“Okay,” she said, forcing a laugh. “What’s the joke?”

“What do you mean?”

She leaned forward and muttered, “I mean, that’s my name. Mia Dearden.” A thought hit her. “Tell me you’re not gonna use that to stalk me.”

“No. No, I’m not trying to stalk anybody! I’m just trying to make something right. Something I screwed up.” He dragged both hands through his hair. “And there isn’t really a way I can explain why without sounding crazy.”

The door opened, and Mia looked up. “Oh my God.”

“I know, I probably  _ do _ sound crazy already,” Barry groaned. “Iris tried to warn me.”

“No, not you.” Mia swatted at his arm impatiently. “Is that- I mean, maybe she’s just a lookalike—”

“Who?” Barry started to turn around in his seat.

“Don’t just stare!” She hissed, as she stared at the blonde walking across the room to the end of the bar. She didn’t sit down, instead stopping by...Larry’s chair?

“I’m not crazy, right? That’s Dinah from Birds of Prey.”

“Sure is,” Barry said with a grimace.

Mia only barely held in a squeal.

—

Dinah stepped off the train and drew in a deep breath. Yep, same old Star.

“You sure you don’t wanna skip the old man this time? You can always mail him,” Ted suggested.

She shook her head. “This is the only way I can make sure he’s still kicking, Ted.” If barely, she added mentally.

He shouldered both of their duffles and passed her a set of keys. “Alright. Here’s for the apartment. And don’t let him get to you.”

“Nothing gets to me.”

She shrugged deeper into the shoulders of her beat up leather jacket before marching off. It was a fifteen minute walk from the train station to the old walkup, and in that time she was catcalled three times and only stomped on two sets of toes. On her best behavior, really.

She entered the front hall with its sour milk smell to find the old landlord Nichols pounding on her dear old dad’s door. “Lance, I’m warning you this time! You’re three weeks late!”

“Hey.”

He turned and sucked in his gut at the sight of her.

“Oh, uhhh.”

“Give me a minute to get it all squared away, would you?” She smiled with no teeth as she slipped by him and bent to snag the key out from under the threadbare mat. Dinah could feel the old lecher’s eyes on her.

She entered the empty apartment and thumbed through a stack of bills. He was falling behind again.

Dinah took out the envelope of money she’d brought with her, fishing out several twenties before leaving the rest on top of the bills. Then she exited the apartment and locked up.

“Here you go,” she told Nichols sweetly, tucking the bills into his breast pocket. Then with a light shove to get him out of her way, she left the building.

From there, she hit the bars, from closest to furthest. It was in the fifth one that she spotted him hunched over a scotch.

He’d gone totally bald last year, but it was still strange to see. He looked older, frailer somehow even without the scraggly mess that used to sit there. Dinah walked up and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey.”

Her father raised his head from the bar top, bloodshot eyes taking her in before he snorted in disgust. “What’ve I told you about walking around looking like that, huh? You hoping to get jumped?”

Dinah crossed her arms. “I can take care of myself. And I wear what I like.”

“Yeah? Does that Grant like it? Lousy old—”

“I don’t wanna fight about Ted. You know he thinks anyone who isn’t in sweats is just screwing themselves anyway.” She pulled the stool beside his over and sat with her back to the bar, a nonverbal signal she wasn’t interested in what they were selling.

“I ran into Nichols in your building. You’re all paid up.”

He scoffed into his drink. “I don’t need charity.”

“Right, just your rent,” she observed dryly. “Dad, why don’t you let me buy you a house?”

“I just said—”

“It wouldn’t be charity. It’d be, I don’t know.” She pushed her hair back behind one ear. “It could be our house. You know?”

He actually put the glass down. “Our house with you running all over the country? Yeah right. We haven’t had a house since you were eight years old. Bet you wish she’d taken you too, huh?  _ Dinah? _ ”

“Don’t do this here,” she muttered.

“Well, why’d you take back her name?” He accused, turning sideways to face her head on. “Why’re you doing any of this, selling yourself to all these people? You were gonna do something with your life once. Remember that? Always told me you wanted to save the world, just like your pops,” he said, voice breaking on the last word. He swayed a bit on the stool.

“Yeah, well my pops got kicked off the force for drinking and left his daughter in foster care,” she answered stiffly. “You sort of forget about the world when you’re just trying to save yourself.”

He blinked and shrunk back. “Laurel—”

She shrugged off his hand when he tried to reach out. “Go home, dad. You’re only embarrassing yourself.”

She stood and left him sitting there with his drink, heading straight for the door. She didn’t hold out any hopes that he would listen to her advice. He never listened to anybody’s.

Dinah glanced sharply over her shoulder. All she saw was a line of patrons sitting at the bar and a young bartender at the end drying the same glass over and over. She shook her head and left out the front door. Probably just paranoia.

But she could swear someone had been watching her.

—-

Barry shrunk down at the other end of the bar, hoping he hadn’t been spotted. At the sound of the door swinging shut, he relaxed.

“Wow,” Thea — or Mia, he guessed, breathed. “I can’t believe  _ Dinah _ from Birds of Prey just walked right in here! How does some loser like Larry know her anyway?”

“He’s her father,” Barry said on a sigh.

“What?”

“Or he was. I — this is a mess.”

“How do you know? You friends with her or something?”

“Or something,” he replied.

“Lucky,” said Mia enviously. He wanted to tell her that she had it all wrong, that she was the one who was good friends with Laurel. That they were like sisters, inseparable.

But they weren’t. They were strangers. He was sitting in a sea of strangers.

Barry stood. “Uh, listen, thanks for the water. And- and take care of yourself, okay?”

“Sure.” She gave him another crooked smile like she was trying not to broadcast her thoughts that he was being weird. Then she took his glass and took it over to wash.

There were more piercings in her ear than he thought she’d had. The knuckles on her right hand were bruised. Did she still fight? Did she have a place to stay? Were they okay like this, and was there any way for him to judge it fairly? Some way to stack up the improvements against the drawbacks and put his conscience to rest.

Larry Lance fell off his stool. Barry ducked his head and left the bar. He didn’t think he could offer his help, knowing he’d done this to the man.

Out on the street, he looked both ways, trying to spot Laurel. Or Dinah. For some reason, it was harder for him to think of her that way than the others; maybe because he wanted more than the others for her to be exactly as she’d been before the prison riot, before Darhk, before Oliver and the others had lost her.

Barry didn’t have to search far.

“She said to let her go,” he heard her familiar voice from down the end of an alley. “Or do you need your hearing checked?”

When Barry stopped just outside the entrance of the alley, he found Laurel standing with her arms crossed in front of two men, one of whom was tugging on the arm of another terrified looking woman.

“Hey, this is my girl, alright? Stay out of it,” the man holding the woman at his side said. “Unless you wanna keep my buddy company.”

His friend cracked his knuckles.

“Very cute,” Laurel remarked. Her tone was light, but Barry recognized that stance. Whether she knew it or not, that was the Black Canary.

The second guy advanced menacingly. “I’ll show you cute.”

Just as Barry was preparing to intervene — rush the innocent woman to safety, then deal with these less than exemplary examples of the male species — Laurel made her move.

Only he’d been wrong. It was  _ Siren’s _ move.

The sound waves crashed into the guy and sent him flying as she screamed, and he rolled to a stop just before the alley wall.

“Jesus!” The first man exclaimed. His supposed woman took off running in his distraction. He picked his friend up off the ground and the two men tore off in the opposite direction.

Laurel stood breathing heavily in the alley, fists clenched at her sides. Then she looked over her shoulder.

Their eyes met. Laurel’s breath stuttered in her chest. Barry gave a slow, disbelieving shake of the head. Then he drew one step back.

Barry ran. He ran all the way to Central, to Joe’s house, and up the stairs. He found himself stopped outside Iris’ door.

It was late, way too late. But he knocked anyway.

Iris answered in mere minutes. Her laptop was sitting open on her bed with her notebook beside it. Her hair sat in a knot on top of her head. The easy smile she wore slipped off her face at the sight of him.

“Bear? What’s wrong?” She reached to touch his arms. “Did you find Thea?”

Mia, Larry, Connor,  _ Dinah _ — it was wrong, it was all wrong, and he couldn’t fathom the careless damage he’d done.

So he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder and cried.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry this chapter's coming to you after a bit of a wait. School has left both myself and my beta very busy. Though on that note, everyone should really thank colorofmymind for helping with grammar and clarity issues, because this chapter reads a lot better with her help.  
> I'd also like to give a thanks and shout out to our new Lauriver discord server for giving their input on some of the world-building for this new timeline. A lot of the history for the Gotham characters came together with their help, and we'll see the start of some of that this chapter. For anyone interested in joining the server, here's the link:  
> https://discord.gg/gp9ANVr
> 
> At any rate, thanks so much for your patience, and I hope you enjoy!

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Damn age getting to him.

As it was, Ted woke on his couch to the sound of a key trying to find the lock and muttered curses. He got to his feet just as Dinah pushed through the door and slammed it behind her, glancing back through the window.

“Alright, we expecting company?”

She looked at him. “Ted, it happened again.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

“I don’t know what it  _ is, _ ” she burst out. “I mean I do, but — I mean, why me, right? Babs is fine, Helena’s fine, and Pam—” she drew up short. “Well, nobody’s really sure what’s wrong with her. But at least it’s consistent.”

“Not getting worse?”

Dinah chewed her lip. “Harley says they’ve had to up her dosage again, or that rash keeps coming back. If that stupid explosion hadn’t knocked her back into that ivy…”

“Or hit you when you were holding the mic?”

“Yeah.” Dinah looked down and sighed. “I just need to, I don’t know, take a breather or something.”

“Stuff’s in your room.”

“Thanks, Ted.” She touched his shoulder distractedly as she made her way down the hall into the spare room she used whenever they stopped here. A few minutes later, he could hear sounds of a familiar melody on the guitar. Ted shook his head.

It wasn’t any wonder she’d gotten worked up and that this whatever-it-was had activated again. Dealing with that washed up excuse for a father, being back here…

He found his phone on the coffee table and went through the recent contacts. His call was picked up after a single ring.

“Hey, Ted.”

“Barbara. You got any time?”

“Yeah. Dad’s got another night shift. He won’t be back for hours.” He could hear fingers clacking away at a computer’s keys rather than a keyboard’s. “What’s up?”

“Dinah’s had another accident. She’s a bit shaken up.”

“Put her on. I’m switching over to video.”

Ted went down the hall and knocked on the door. It wasn’t completely shut, so it swung in a few inches. 

_ “I tried to look for you in the dark water, but I got lost along the way,” _ Dinah was half-singing, half-saying under her breath. She really wasn’t giving that one up, was she?

“Hey, it’s Barbara.”

Dinah smiled up at him and set the guitar aside. “Thanks, Ted.”

She took the phone and set it up so she and Barbara could each see each other’s faces.

“So what happened?” Barbara never was one to mince words. Probably got it from the old commissioner.

“There were some creeps trying to force a woman into having their sick idea of fun. I didn’t like the look of it, so I said something.”

“And then screamed something, huh?”

“He was running at me. It was, I don’t know, instinct. Something like that.” Dinah dragged a hand back through her hair. “I thought for a second somebody else saw — but nobody was there. I must be getting paranoid.”

“Well, we do need to talk about what to do going forward, Dinah. This clearly isn’t something you can ignore or force to stop happening.”

“I know. But what do you want me to do, announce to the world I’m a metahuman? The Flash would just zip up onto the stage and have me in handcuffs,” Dinah remarked, the humor in her tone only barely masking contempt.

“Who says you have to tell people you’re the metahuman?” Ted asked. Dinah turned towards him and it was clear that Barbara was listening as well. “Nobody knows who the Flash is. That’s why he isn’t in prison.”

Dinah looked back at the phone screen. “What do you think, Babs? You’re the masked crusader expert.”

“Don’t remind me,” Barbara replied with a grimace. “But I do think you need to find a way to separate your identity from the woman who can knock down walls with her voice. If only so the latter can do some good.”

Dinah stood, her arms crossing over her chest. “You sound like dad. He was just reminding me tonight how I used to want to do something for the world with my life.”

“Well, don’t you?”

Ted held his breath, watching and waiting.

“I can barely do enough for myself,” Dinah said. “I’m not some hero, Babs, or even a guy in a bat suit with an ax to grind. I just got dealt a bad hand.”

“And why let that stop you?” Ted asked. “You climbed out of poverty with your music, Dinah. You got yourself out of the foster care system. You’d be free of the abuse if you’d cut the old man off.”

She scoffed.

“I know you feel you haven’t done what you set out to do,” he continued, placing his hands on her shoulders. “But don’t you think you might find out more about yourself if you look to the future instead of the past?”

“I can’t stop looking, Ted,” Dinah said, her eyes wide and pleading.

“And you won’t. But tell me, where did that little girl who snuck into my gym ‘cause she kept getting into scrapes go? Where’d that young lady who kicked guys in the head for harassing women in the crowd go?”

“You know I’d be out there if the answer had come back different,” Barbara offered.

Dinah scowled. “Who cares if Batman said no? You could still do it.”

“Maybe now that I have some money behind me,” Barbara allowed. “But I don’t have the kind of power that accelerator gave you, Dinah.”

“I could hurt someone,” Dinah stated. It was the fear first and foremost in her mind ever since they’d learned what she could do, after all the months of worrying that the accident had stolen her voice. Maybe it had in a way; it was making her hold herself back.

“With the right kind of training, I don’t think so,” Barbara countered. “But that’s gonna take practice, the same as all our other lessons.”

“So where am I supposed to practice? I don’t exactly have my own city lying around somewhere unless you two are surprising me this Christmas.”

“Well, you are home,” Barbara said.

Dinah raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t Star already have a guy?”

Babs shrugged. “Just Green Arrow. Batman never took him that seriously. Thought he liked to make speeches more than get anything done.”

“Forgive me if I don’t hold Batman’s opinion that highly,” Dinah said with a cool tone, “considering he clearly doesn’t know talent when it knocks on his door.”

“Things might have been different,” Barbara said not for the first or probably the last time. “Just my dad being the GCPD liaison with him...it complicates things.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that involved of a discussion with Batman would necessitate you knowing who you were talking to,” Ted remarked.

“Nope, not falling for it, Ted.”

He grinned. “Worth a shot. I really am starting to wonder if I should make the rounds and get these new boys into shape.”

“Yeah right,” Dinah said, some of her old bite back in her voice. “You like us too much to go over to that boys’ club.”

“All the more reason to get you out there, Dinah.”

She sighed, looking down at her guitar. “Just...let me think it over, okay?”

“Sure thing.” He retrieved his phone and headed for the door.

“It’s not that I don’t want to help,” Dinah said before he had quite left. “It just feels like every time I try...someone gets hurt.”

“That’s just the growing pains. But I think you’re ready to fly now, Dinah.”

She nodded once, and Ted shut the door behind him as he left.

“You think I might have pushed too hard?” He asked Barbara, who had stayed on the line.

“She doesn’t think she’s the right person to be a hero,” Barbara said. “But that’s exactly why she is.”

“Right you are, Babs. Think I’ll go air out the old gym here. We might be needing it soon. You feel like joining in?”

“Give me two weeks. I promised my father we’d spend some time together.” Barbara gestured around the empty apartment she currently sat in. “You can see how that’s going.”

“Well, you hang in there. We’re gonna get you your chance, too.”

“Thanks, Ted.”

He hung up and smiled to himself. Much as he liked his role with the band, he was looking forward to being a teacher again.

—-

Combing through the old family papers was easier said than done. Back when he’d first returned from the island, he had found out that they’d all been boxed up and stored in a warehouse. Walter had been meticulous about the organization of it all, but Oliver had just gotten out what was necessary to declare himself alive again and then looked for a new place to live. Even if the old Manor hadn’t been sold, he couldn’t have gone back there. Too many empty rooms.

Now, he was looking for something entirely unrelated to him, something among his mother’s things. He had to stop every now and then, smiling with watery eyes at her handwriting or an old photo. She’d kept every one of his school pictures, notating them on the back:  _ Oliver, 6th grade. _

God, why’d she let him have that hair?

Eventually, he came across an old lock box. Walter must not have touched it beyond moving it here, though he clearly hadn’t found the key.

Oliver looked up at the ceiling. “Sorry, mom.” He broke the lock.

Inside were a number of yellowing papers, some looked to be about financial matters while others were of a more personal nature.

There was also a checkbook tied to an account number Oliver didn’t recognize, nor was it from their family bank. It recorded monthly payments to one of the local orphanages, up until the last month before they all got on the  _ Gambit. _

Heart thumping in his ears, Oliver reached a birth certificate at the bottom of the stack of papers.  _ Mia Dearden, _ was the name given to the child, born January 21st, 1995. She was ten years younger than him. He had a kid sister?

There was a photo paper-clipped to the back of a tiny baby sleeping in a nursery. It was irrational, maybe, but he felt a fierce longing for this tiny life he’d never known.

But he should have. How had his parents kept this from him?

The birth certificate was from a hospital whose name he didn’t recognize. A quick search on his phone showed that it was out of state. He tried to remember that year. Had his mother been away on a trip? Had she hidden the pregnancy that way? His father’s name wasn’t on the certificate. Did that mean…?

There was nothing to indicate if his father had known, or what he had thought if he had. But there had to be some reason Mia Dearden hadn’t been raised alongside him in their home. Never mind that his mother must have purposefully brought her back to the city and kept up payments that must have seen the orphanage well outfitted. At least until 2007.

She would have been twelve, or around that age, Oliver realized. What had happened to her after? Would the orphanage know? Had she found another family, someone to provide the love and care his parents had either been unwilling or unable to give?

“Dad?”

Oliver looked up from his desk, spotting Connor in the shadows by the door. It had gotten late, and the single lamp he had on was the only source of light in the room.

“Hey. Sorry. I got, uh, caught up with all this. You eat yet?”

“Did you?”

Fair enough question. Oliver set the birth certificate and the photo of his baby sister aside, standing up. “Okay, what do we want? Chicken? Chicken tacos? Think we still have some wraps.”

“We could order a pizza,” Connor suggested. “You look tired.”

Oliver looked down. His son was probably right; he’d been at this for three days now, only stopping for meals or to go out on patrol.

“Okay. You pick the toppings.”

They settled out in the main room to wait after Oliver called the order in. He looked Connor over during the silence. He had failed to be the father this boy should have had for the first several years of his life, and now he was finding that was an all too common mistake of his when it came to family. Even if he really had been a kid in the case of Mia Dearden.

“So,” Connor began, “what did you find out?”

Oliver grimaced. “Uncle Barry was right. Sort of, anyway.”

Connor’s eyes were wide, in excitement or worry he couldn’t tell. “So there is a Thea Queen?”

“I don’t know about her, but my mother had a daughter she never told me about. Her name’s Mia,” Oliver said, his voice cracking slightly on the name. He cleared his throat. “Mia Dearden. She has mom’s maiden name.”

“How come your mom never told you?”

“Well, if I had to guess...my parents were partners in the business sense. They built the old company together, as equals. But in their relationship, it wasn’t exactly like that.”

Connor nodded sagely. “She had an affair.”

“Seems that way. Not exactly the best example us Queens are setting for you. Don’t get any ideas,” Oliver quipped when Connor made a face. He was definitely glad that his son still seemed uninterested in the dating scene, and prayed it would last at least a little longer.

“What are you gonna do about Mia?”

That was a question he hadn’t let himself contemplate yet. “She’s a young woman now. Probably out on her own. I don’t know how happy she’d be to learn the truth now.”

“But you wanna meet her.”

It was remarkable how well the kid could read him.

“It’s hard not to wonder. How different would things have been, you know? The way Barry was talking...it sounded like he thought she’d be here.”

What would it have been like to return after those five years to family, to someone he knew had missed him and cared about him? Someone who could’ve been the listening ear he’d needed when Connor had first arrived, who could’ve helped him.

“You know, she’s not the only one Uncle Barry thought should be around.” Connor’s voice pulled him out of that wondering, and when he looked up his son was grinning. “How are you supposed to know the lead singer of one of the hottest bands in the country?”

Oliver shook his head. “That’s maybe the one thing hardest to buy.”

He’d been vaguely aware of his parents’ infidelity. The idea that one of them had had a child in that context was not unthinkable. But where would his path have met up with someone like Dinah?

Barry had said something about the team.  _ “Laurel’s still — I mean, Dinah. Dinah’s still…” _

Still what? Singing? Way out of Oliver’s league? Barry had been worried about Thea’s — or Mia’s — existence. Had something about Dinah not been right? And who was Laurel?

A knock at the door interrupted them, and Oliver got up to get their food and tip the delivery man. When he came back over to the couch, Connor held up his phone. It was displaying a social media page of some sort. He could never keep the sites straight.

“Think this could be our Mia Dearden?”

The profile picture was of a young woman with short brown hair and delicate features, almost like a pixie if he had to put a word to it. But her eyes...those were his mother’s eyes.

“Says she’s a bartender on 4th and Wells in the Glades,” Connor continued. “We could go check it out?”

A part of Oliver wanted to throw his coat on and take the elevator down to the lobby right now. But he looked down at Connor.

“Are you sure? I still feel like you and I are figuring out how we work together now, and this would be a lot. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being pushed aside in favor of the next surprise relative I have.”

Connor put his phone away. “I came to Starling to get to know my family. All of it. If this lady is your sister, then that makes her my aunt. I’ve never had one of those.”

Oliver felt himself smile. Trust his kid to look on the bright side.

“And anyway, it’s not like you’d just forget about me,” Connor joked half-heartedly. There was only the slightest hint of vulnerability there, but it was enough for Oliver to read.

He dropped a knee onto the couch and wrapped his son in a hug. “No. Never.”

They settled back in to enjoy their pizza, another night as father and son. Maybe in a week or so, they might have more company. Oliver eyed the armchair across from the couch, trying to imagine the small girl in the photo sitting there. Would she be happy to join them?

Barry had been right about his sister. Could he really be right again about Dinah? Oliver sent Connor to bed and went back to his office, shifting his mother’s old things aside to unearth his computer keyboard. He scrolled through articles and photos alike.

No one knew the woman’s full name. It was likely she came from Gotham, as the rest of her bandmates had. And Gotham was hardly his territory.

But the more he stared at her photo, he thought he  _ should _ know her. Was it the old paranoia, the placebo effect resulting from Barry’s words, or was there something more than wishful thinking to his wondering if those lips had smiled up at him once before?

—-

Barry sat on the information he had about Dinah for a few days, nervously turning it over in his head. The trouble was, he didn’t really know who to go to.

If he alerted the police, they wouldn’t really be prepared for the kind of power that sonic scream held. If he went to Oliver and his team, he wasn’t sure what they would think. He’d already probably said way too much to Oliver in his distress.

Truthfully, Barry wasn’t sure what to make of this new version of his friend. Oliver wasn’t as different as some of the others had been in the Flashpoint timeline, but there seemed to be a subtle sort of change to him hard to pin down. And Barry just didn’t know if he should trust this Oliver to handle something like a Black Siren. If that was even what they were dealing with.

It was up to his team, as Iris kept nudging him into realizing over the week. They knew how to manage a metahuman, even if the weapon they’d used against Siren wouldn’t work against a Laurel of this Earth. But he needed Cisco and Caitlin’s help if he was going to brainstorm a backup.

With some trepidation, Barry entered the lab that afternoon to the now-familiar sounds of Laurel’s voice on the speakers. Since learning Barry had next to no knowledge of Birds of Prey, Cisco had taken it upon himself to play the band’s entire discography, along with anything and everything he could find with Dinah’s vocals attached. This particular song didn’t even sound like rock at all, come to think of it.

“Uh, dude?”

Cisco swiveled around in his chair and seemed to understand Barry’s confused point up towards the ceiling at the music.

“Oh, hey. Yeah, this was released a year or so after the accident, all studio-recorded. She did an album of the Great American songbook sort of stuff, sort of for the slower crowd, you know? People still went nuts over it.” Cisco’s sigh had a dreamy quality to it as he added, “She could sing the phone book.”

“Is everything alright, Barry?” Caitlin asked, watching him carefully. He must not have hidden his nerves as well as he hoped.

Joe came through into the cortex, followed by Wally, and he knew it was now or never. He was going to need his team behind him for this, however willing they were to be.

“Okay. Guys, um, I really hate to bring this up again, but we’ve got to talk about Flashpoint.”

Immediately Cisco’s shoulders hunched, and Caitlin grimaced. Joe shifted a bit on his feet. Wally alone seemed ready to talk.

“Alright, what about it?”

“It’s not really to do with anything here,” Barry was quick to reassure. “Not exactly. It’s...it’s the Arrow Team.”

The others looked at each other. “They’ve been affected? How?” Caitlin asked.

“Well,” Barry hesitated, looking to Iris for support. She gave him an encouraging nod. “It’s about Dinah from Birds of Prey,” he admitted.

“Oh no, what did you do to her?” Cisco immediately said.

“I — nothing! I mean, it’s confusing, but she is different because of the timeline changing, yeah,” Barry admitted. “I tracked her down the other night and saw her knock a guy down with sonic waves. From her mouth.”

There was a long beat of silence as the others digested that bit of news. As before, Cisco was first to react.

“Dinah from  Birds of Prey is a meta? Barry, this is the best news you’ve given us in forever!”

“No, not great news. Because we’ve already met a Laurel — I mean Dinah — who was a meta, and she was evil. Does nobody remember Black Siren from Earth-2?” Barry looked around but received mostly quizzical looks from the group. He should’ve expected it; Cisco would’ve said something if the rockstar he idolized had a double he’d met.

“So, you’re worried that this timeline’s Dinah is also evil,” Joe surmised.

“I don’t know,” Barry admitted. “I mean, when I saw her use her powers, it was to help this other woman. But then what’s her goal long-term? I’ve seen her powers in action when Siren used them. They’re powerful.”

“Tell them about Laurel,” Iris spoke up unexpectedly. “The one you knew, Barry.”

“Who’s Laurel?” Caitlin asked. “And why do you keep correcting yourself by calling her Dinah?”

“Because that’s how I knew her before. How we all knew her. As Laurel.” Barry looked around the room, watching their intrigued but otherwise blank faces. Not for the first time, he wished somehow he had the power to show them what they had once lived along with him rather than just tell them. But he couldn’t.

“Dinah Laurel Lance was the ADA of Star City, and at night she was part of the Arrow Team as a vigilante called the Black Canary.”

“That’s her real name? Dinah Lance?” Wally asked.

“Uh, yeah.” Barry blinked, though it occurred to him a moment later that in this timeline he’d had yet to hear anyone else use her full name. Thea — or Mia — had even been surprised to learn who Laurel’s father was. What was Dinah’s story, really? What could’ve had such an effect on her past?

“She- she died last spring. Before Flashpoint. There was a sorcerer they were fighting, and he killed her. But now none of that ever happened.” Barry was aware he was pacing, but he couldn’t really stop himself. “She’s a singer instead of a lawyer, Oliver and the others don’t know her, Oliver’s son showed up a whole year early and is Connor—”

“Whoa, what’s wrong with my man Connor?” Cisco demanded.

“Nothing, just, you know, he’s different! Oliver had a whole different kid named William who apparently doesn’t exist anymore!”

“Oh, Barry,” Caitlin sighed, disapproval inlaid in every syllable.

“I know,” he ground out. “This is not good. I just don’t know how to fix it.”

“Don’t.”

The single word came from Cisco, and Barry blinked in surprise. “Don’t?”

“Yeah. Trying to ‘fix’ things was what caused you to mess everything up in the first place. So just live with it like the rest of us.” His friend stood and walked out of the cortex, likely heading for his workroom.

“Cisco’s right, Barry,” Caitlin added. “Your time travel never seems to put anything back fully the way it was. It’s better for you to just leave it alone.” She, too, turned away. He could tell by the look on Joe’s face that he was thinking something similar, even if he’d probably say it in a gentler way.

Barry looked to Iris. “We still need to be prepared to deal with- with Dinah if she’s more like her Earth-2 counterpart was.”

“Give the others some time, Bear,” was her advice. “You’ve just dumped a lot of information on them. It’s going to take some time to process.”

“We’ll be ready when it counts,” Wally added with a confidence Barry wished he felt. “And hey, maybe she is on our side.”

“Maybe.” Barry sunk down into Cisco’s abandoned chair and felt Iris walk up behind him, her hands massaging at his shoulders.

“We could start with some recon,” Wally was suggesting, using Joe as a sounding board just as much as he was using Barry and Iris. “Most of the band’s from Gotham.” Wally snapped his fingers. “Maybe Batman knows her!”

Barry’s head lifted sharply in bewilderment. “Bat _ -who _ ?”

At the same time, Joe gave a sharp shake of the head. “Oh, hell no. Not that nut job.”

For someone extremely used to the feeling of deja vu, Barry seemed destined to find himself unaccountably lost.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many apologies, but I lost track of how long it had been since I updated this. Totally my fault! I'm excited for you guys to read this chapter, though, because we're starting to get the ball rolling on a few of the different plots. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy!

After the weird encounter with a man named Barry and seeing Dinah from Birds of Prey in one night, Mia’s life had gone back to depressingly normal. How was that fair?

She’d thought about sharing the discovery she’d made about Larry online, but then who would really believe her? And pop stars had to have lawyers and stuff looking out for their image. She really couldn’t afford getting sued.

A part of her still didn’t believe it anyway. How could someone so cool like Dinah have such a schlub for a father? But then again, nobody knew her past.

Mia has always kind of assumed — or maybe hoped — that her idol was a kid from the system, like her. No parents, no roots, free to do as they pleased for good or ill. More ill in her case, as it had turned out so far.

It was another long night of pouring shots and drying glasses. The nights all seemed to blur together after a while, unless something extraordinary happened.

And then something did. “I’m gonna take my fifteen,” she called out, not really waiting for a response. Mia tossed her apron aside and walked to the door, only vaguely noticing the guy who stood from one of the two-seater booths to do so as well.

She did notice when he followed her around the corner. “Hey, buddy, this is kind of the unofficial employee-only section, so if you could—” The rest of her words died in her throat once she’d turned towards him.

Because it was Oliver Queen.

“Yeah, sorry,” he was saying, his eyes jumping all over her appearance. “I just wanted to ask you when your shift ends.”

Mia raised both eyebrows. She’d heard he was some kind of player back in the day, but seriously? “Don’t you think I’m a little young for you?”

His jaw dropped. “No! No, that’s not what I — I promise, this is not a come-on. I just...we need to talk, about something important.”

This was so weird. That Barry guy had asked her what she knew about Oliver Queen, and less than a week out he turned up looking for her?

“I’m here for another four,” she said, breaking every rule of how to interact with male customers, but this one was famous so it wasn’t like he could get away with too much.

“Okay,” he said. There was a spark in his eye, like the prospect of getting to talk to her more was something to be happy about. He was about the only one who’d ever thought so.

“Yeah, so can you let me have the last of my break?”

“Right. Yeah, I can do that.” He retreated back inside.

Mia shook her head. What was even going on anymore?

Four hours later, he was still at his booth. She sighed, throwing herself down into the empty seat across from him.

“Okay, what’s this about?”

“Did you want to talk here? We could go somewhere else.”

“I’m not going somewhere with you. Stranger danger and all that.”

“Right,” he said with a wince. “That’s good. That’s smart.” He scrubbed at his goatee. “So that’s probably where we should start. Uh, recently I learned that you and I — we’re not exactly strangers.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Well, in a way. The thing is...I’m your half-brother,” he told her.

Now it was her turn for her jaw to drop.

“On my mother’s side,” he added, like he thought that was helpful.

Thea placed her head in her hands. “Okay, really, what’s the joke? Is it the last names thing? Cause that guy was in earlier—”

“What guy? Barry?”

“Wait, you _know_ him?”

“He’s my friend. He’s the one who told me.”

Mia sat back. “What do you mean? Why would _he_ know?”

“That’s kind of complicated. But we can talk about that, too. I...gosh, there’s so much to talk about.” He said _gosh._ Who even said gosh anymore?

Her shock was starting to give way, however, and Mia found herself narrowing her eyes. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why do we have anything to talk about? For over twenty years, you couldn’t be bothered to even notice my _existence._ Now because some guy says we’re related, you’re suddenly interested?”

He was stunned speechless for a few moments. “Mia, I- I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Right, because our mom — _your_ mom — didn’t tell you. Because she didn’t want me.”

“I’m not sure why she sent you to the orphanage. But she kept an eye on you, made payments—”

“Oh, because that makes everything better?” Mia said with a nasty laugh. A couple people glanced over their way, but she paid them little mind. “Trust a Queen to think that money solves all problems!”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m still trying to figure everything out, I just wanted—”

“Screw what you want, alright? I’ve survived my whole life without a family. I don’t need you swooping in to force me to be yours.” Mia stood and stormed out of the bar.

“Mia!” He called after her, but she didn’t stop and he didn’t follow.

What did he expect? That she’d move in with him and his bastard kid, they could forget everything that had come before and sing kumbaya? If what he said was true, she’d had parents, and they’d willingly given her away. Not out of some kind of necessity, not because they couldn’t afford it, but because they hadn’t wanted her. She’d long ago given up wondering what her family might have been like, but the reality was worse than anything she’d ever imagined.

Mia stopped and let herself lean against a wall, willing her eyes to just stop stinging already. She’d promised to stop feeling sorry for herself.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice of him.”

Mia stiffened at the unfamiliar voice and looked up. Standing across from her was a man with dark hair and a beard. He looked about the same age as Oliver Queen and even richer in his expensive suit. Mia sighed. She so did not want to deal with this.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help noticing what was going on back there. It was Mia, right?”

“What do you want?” She huffed. “You about to tell me you’re my secret brother, too?”

He smiled, but there was something off about it. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“Funny you should mention that.”

\---

Dinah looked at the street down below and gulped. “Why’d I let you guys talk me into this?”

 _“Hey, you’ll be fine. Think of it like stage-diving.”_ She was used to earpieces on stage, but it usually wasn’t Babs’ voice in her ear. It hadn’t surprised her in the least Ted had a working pair of comm links, though.

“I am not jumping from this high. Not without a wire, at least. Just...getting a feel for things. Lay of the land.” It sounded unconvincing to her own ears. Dinah scowled at herself and reached to tug on the material resting around her eyes.

_“Stop picking at the mask.”_

“What makes you think I’m doing that?”

_“Because I can see you through the security cam mounted on the high rise across from you.”_

Dinah made a face in the high rise’s direction.

_“Cute.”_

“I try. Look, Babs—”

 _“No names on the comm. We use code._ ”

She rolled her eyes. “Alright, Bat-ling.”

_“Please don’t call me that.”_

“Well, what do you want to be called? Lady Bat? Batgirl?”

_“I’m kind of thinking of making up my own thing. You know, since this is just us.”_

Dinah felt herself smile. “Alright. Just let me know once you have something.”

_“Sure thing. You start thinking about one, too.”_

“Yeah,” Dinah sighed. It wasn’t like she wasn’t used to rebranding. From Laurel to Dinah, after all.

She’d been hearing the name she’d gone by in childhood a lot, recently. Visits to her dad tended to do that, but she could’ve sworn that one camera guy from the Central City publication had nearly called her it the other week. Maybe she’d imagined it, or maybe it had just been a herald of the strange turn her life was about to take.

Her eyes caught shapes moving down on the street below, and she quickly went to the fire escape and slid down the railing partway.

A few young men were giving chase to another of their group, yelling epithets as they went.

“You’re a dead man!”

“You think you can walk away? You think it’s that easy, huh?”

“Maybe not a damsel in distress situation, but one less murder’s always a good thing,” Dinah muttered to herself. She continued down to the ground level, doing her best to blend in with the shadows as she tracked the men to an alley.

“There’s nowhere to run!”

“Come on, guys, I don’t want a part of this anymore! I gave you my cut!”

“We said at the start, all in. That was the deal. And you gave us barely half!”

“I had bills, man! I can get you the rest later!”

Dinah cleared her throat. She’d heard plenty to get the gist. “Boys?”

The ones cornering their former friend turned, looking her up and down in clear confusion. Aside from the mask, she supposed she didn’t look much like a vigilante; Ted was working on getting something a little more durable made for her, but for now Dinah was in her jacket, a navy tank top and a set of her workout leggings. She was working on a limited wardrobe here since she didn’t exactly want anyone recognizing her outfit. Instagram was terrible for going unnoticed.

These guys were probably also expecting a big man in green, she reflected on a moment later.

“Who the hell are you?”

Damn, she hadn’t expected to need a name already. Was she supposed to tell people her codename? How did that even work?

“A concerned citizen?”

They scoffed at her. Dinah hadn’t had anyone scoff to her face in a long time, outside of the band anyway. It was kind of refreshing.

“We’re just settling a score here, lady. Nothing to get ‘concerned’ about.”

“Settling it physically?”

 _“What exactly is your plan here?”_ Babs asked in her ear. Dinah ignored her, mostly since she didn’t feel like looking crazy talking to the air.

One of the men looked about fed up. “Yeah, physically.”

“Okay, just wanted to confirm.” They’d admitted to trying to commit a crime, right? That gave her due cause or something. She stepped forward and grabbed the arm of the man closest to her, whirling him around and throwing him towards a dumpster behind her.

“What the fuck?”

“Get her!”

She ducked a fist that came careening at her and tripped the guy it was attached to. With her planted foot, she pivoted to send a kick to his rear end.

A third man grabbed her elbow, and Dinah pushed instead of pulled, jabbing him in the chest and sending him sprawling into his back.

They weren’t exactly hardened thugs, it turned out. Dinah glanced around at the three of them groaning on the ground. Her blood was pumping and she was fully in the zone, but here they were just...lying there. “Figures. No stamina,” she grumbled under her breath.

Dinah started to leave when the young man she’d been defending called out, “Um, thank you.”

“Some free advice? Turn yourself over to the cops. They can get you protection I’m not able to provide 24/7.” Dinah turned, marching over the fallen man in her path. “What did you think?”

 _“Couldn’t see much,”_ Barbara told her. _“But not bad. Want to take on something a bit more challenging?”_

“Why not? Night’s still young.” And she doubted this was the only crime or almost-crime happening in the whole city. Though that caused a thought. “So where do you think Green Arrow is?”

_“Who knows? Why, you want to meet him?”_

“I dunno. We’re in the same neighborhood and all, he might get nervous I’m on his turf.”

_“And you’re worried about that?”_

Dinah smirked. “Worried? No, that’s the fun part.”

Barbara’s laughter filled her ear, and Dinah picked up her step.

\---

Bruce was a very busy man. Even if he didn’t have a secret night job, he would likely be considered a busy man. A ridiculous notion; CEOs tended to delegate more than anything. Nevertheless, running Wayne Enterprises was only one in a very long list of tasks he had to complete each day to ensure his city stayed afloat. 

Which was why he didn’t appreciate when others came asking for his help in their own cities unannounced. Particularly when said others bypassed all his security measures.

Alfred tsked whenever he wore the cowl in the cave, but it was necessary for times such as these when two speedsters zipped right into being.

“Woah,” the older of the two said, looking around the cavernous space.

Bruce hit a button on the console which locked the door to the upstairs from the inside to ensure Alfred didn’t accidentally arrive in the middle of whatever this was.

The younger one nudged his mentor, who gave a start. “Oh, right! Uh, Batman.”

“Yes?”

“We wanted to ask if you could run a background check for a case we’re working?” Allen probably didn’t realize how much his easy parlance with law enforcement terminology gave away about his identity, but Bruce wasn’t going to point it out to him.

Especially when he could tell the man was hiding something. “What’s this really about?”

“What do you mean?” Flash asked, as if a desperate attempt at casual was going to smooth everything over.

“You’re acting like you’ve never seen this place or me before.”

“That’s...because I haven’t.”

Bruce worked to keep any surprise off his face. If Flash was out of step with the rest of their reality, there was only one logical explanation. “Time travel.”

The speedster gaped. “How did you—”

His sidekick, West under the mask, raised both hands. “Don’t look at me. We’ve never told him about the time travel.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “You both are capable of reaching speeds that break the sound barrier and beyond. It’s a logical assumption that should you achieve a velocity higher than the speed of light, it would allow you to transcend the normal barriers of linear time as well.” Not that he _liked_ it, but that was a discussion for another day.

“Okay. Well, yes, there was time travel involved. It’s better for the universe if I don’t say much more.”

“Then why did you come here?”

Flash blinked. It seemed he was once again unused to Bruce’s gruffness. “Well, Kid Flash said you call yourself a detective?”

Bruce frowned. “Others do.”

“I need your help finding out information about a woman. She’s a meta, potentially dangerous or potentially not. I need to know more about her.”

“What do you already have? A name?”

“Dinah Laurel Lance, born um...1985!” Said Flash, as though he’d just recalled it.

Bruce turned to his computer and started to type. He could sense the speedsters shifting restlessly on their feet behind him as he did so but pushed that minor irritation to the back of his mind.

“Dinah Laurel Lance, as you say, born in 1985. Her father gained sole custody of her when she was about seven years old but lost it in another year due to his alcoholism making him an unfit parent. She was sent into the foster care system. No record of adoption.”

“Oh man,” West murmured. Sympathy, likely from his own history with a parent embroiled in addiction.

“Any, uh, criminal record?” Allen asked, his nerves plain even behind the mask.

Bruce narrowed his eyes but scanned through the documents.

“Some records indicate a tendency to get into fights, but nothing beyond juvenile censure. What was she doing when you came across her?”

“That’s the thing, I really don’t know. She might have been helping a woman, but then she might have been trying to hurt some guys just for the heck of it. It’s...she’s complicated. But she was definitely born here?”

“She was born in Starling City.”

Allen shook his head. “Right, never mind.”

Bruce grit his teeth. He wasn’t being told something still.

“Thanks for the help.” The speedsters were both gone in an eye blink, leaving him alone once more.

Bruce frowned as he looked over the information. He could see why Flash had needed help; her records for the most part seemed to stop several years ago. But then, if he was right…

Dinah, the singer. They were the same woman. And Barbara Gordon was involved with this woman, a member of her band after leaving Gotham. A metahuman with powers he still didn’t know what were capable of doing.

If this Dinah was dangerous like Flash was fearing, and Barbara thought this was her in to the sort of life he’d tried to shield her from for Jim’s sake…

He was going to have to keep his eyes on this one.


End file.
